2023-12-27 リンショーピング大学
◆水耕栽培は土を使用せず、水と栄養分だけで植物を育てる方法で、効率的な水循環が可能です。従来の栽培方法に比べて水や栄養分の節約ができ、垂直栽培も可能です。これにより、限られた耕地や厳しい環境条件下での食料生産が向上する可能性があります。
◆研究者は「eSoil」の低エネルギー消費と高電圧の危険がない特長に注目し、これが水耕栽培の新たな研究分野の展開に寄与する可能性があると述べています。
＜関連情報＞
- https://liu.se/en/news-item/elektronisk-jord-okar-tillvaxten-hos-grodor
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2304135120
eSoil：作物の苗の成長を促進する低電力の生体電子成長足場 eSoil: A low-power bioelectronic growth scaffold that enhances crop seedling growth
Vasileios K. Oikonomou, Miriam Huerta, Alexandra Sandéhn, Till Dreier, Yohann Daguerre, Hyungwoo Lim, Magnus Berggren, Eleni Pavlopoulou, Torgny Näsholm, Martin Bech, and Eleni Stavrinidou
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Published:December 26, 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2304135120
Significance
Hydroponics are used for cultivation of vegetables, leafy greens, and fodder. Areas with limited arable land, poor soil quality, and harsh environmental conditions can benefit from hydroponic food production. Substrates used in hydroponics mainly offer support to the roots. Here, we developed a bioelectronic soil, the eSoil, that provides electrical stimulus on plants’ roots and their environment in hydroponics. We show that barley seedlings growth is enhanced as the dry weight increased on average by 50% after electrical stimulation. eSoil consumes little power and its main structural component is cellulose, the most abundant polymer. This work opens the pathway for using physical stimuli to enhance plant growth but also provides a platform to understand better plant responses to electric field.
Abstract
Active hydroponic substrates that stimulate on demand the plant growth have not been demonstrated so far. Here, we developed the eSoil, a low-power bioelectronic growth scaffold that can provide electrical stimulation to the plants’ root system and growth environment in hydroponics settings. eSoil’s active material is an organic mixed ionic electronic conductor while its main structural component is cellulose, the most abundant biopolymer. We demonstrate that barley seedlings that are widely used for fodder grow within the eSoil with the root system integrated within its porous matrix. Simply by polarizing the eSoil, seedling growth is accelerated resulting in increase of dry weight on average by 50% after 15 d of growth. The effect is evident both on root and shoot development and occurs during the growth period after the stimulation. The stimulated plants reduce and assimilate NO3− more efficiently than controls, a finding that may have implications on minimizing fertilizer use. However, more studies are required to provide a mechanistic understanding of the physical and biological processes involved. eSoil opens the pathway for the development of active hydroponic scaffolds that may increase crop yield in a sustainable manner.
